Schools protest ministry ranking

By Francis Kagolo     
                    
Several schools have protested the assessment of private secondary schools by the education ministry that ranked Gulu Central High School, St. Mary's College Lugazi and St. Mary's Kitende as the best in the country.

The report released this week shows that more than half of the private schools in the country operate below the expected standards, which affects the quality of teaching and learning.

A cross section of head teachers New Vision contacted condemned the exercise, saying it was unfair since it did not asses all the private schools in the country.

Based on the quality of students' health and safety as well as staff suitability, welfare and development, the ranking graded 828 out of the over 4,000 private secondary schools in the country.

Besides, there is also concern that some schools like St. Mary's Kitende are consistently ranked highly while others are skipped. Kitende was also ranked the best in the first report in 2011.

George William Ndugwa of Baptist High School, Kitebi, revealed that his school was not visited during the recent survey yet even the first assessment was not properly done.

“The idea is good but the manner in which the exercise is done looks unfair. They came to us two years ago. They didn't come back this time,” he said. “Also, the areas assessed are so broad that the other time the evaluators got tired along the way and some of the areas were not well analysed.”

Other factors considered in the grading include the quality of school governance, school structures and facilities, financial sustainability, and student welfare and security, learning and teaching, as well as the level of co-curricular activities for students.

Conducted between 2011 and 2012 by Afroeducare Uganda, a private consulting firm, the survey also considered the schools' commitment to continuous improvement as well as communications and relations with their various stakeholders.

This is the second time Afroeducare is ranking schools although several schools were not assessed after their directors objected the methodology used while others were partially cooperative.

The initiative was introduced in 2009 to address the risks and dangers that children were exposed to by some private secondary schools, such as fire outbreaks, buildings collapsing, drug abuse, moral decadence, increasing academic failures and drop outs, teacher misconduct (strikes, absenteeism) and teacher mistreatment (nonpayment of salaries, lack of job security).

The excellent schools were ranked as 'platinum', outstanding schools as 'diamond' while good schools received the rank of 'gold'. This was followed by silver (satisfactory schools), bronze (fair schools), and iron (poor schools) in a descending order.

Genensio Tumuramye, the director of Newcastle High school in Kampala, whose school was also left out, described the ranking as discriminatory and detrimental to the development of schools.

“It is not fair. There are no standard criteria they are using. You cannot tell why some schools are left out while others are consistently included.”